Richard Kern

Richard Kern

Born: December 20, 1954
in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, USA
Richard Kern is a New York underground filmmaker, writer and photographer. He first came to underground prominence as part of the underground cultural explosion in the East Village of New York City in the 1980s, with erotic and experimental films featuring underground personalities of the time such as Lydia Lunch, David Wojnarowicz, Sonic Youth, Kembra Pfahler, and Henry Rollins. Like many of the musicians around him, Kern had a deep interest in the aesthetics of extreme sex, violence, and perversion. He was one of the leading lights of the Cinema of Transgression movement.

Movies for Richard Kern...

Lydia Lunch: The War Is Never Over
Title: Lydia Lunch: The War Is Never Over
Character: Self
Released: August 15, 2019
Type: Movie
The first career-spanning documentary retrospective of Lydia Lunch's confrontational, acerbic and always electric artistry. As New York City's preeminent No Wave icon from the late 70's, Lunch has forged a lifetime of music and spoken word performance devoted to the utter right of any woman to indulge, seek pleasure, and to say "fuck you!" as loud as any man. In this time of endless attacks on women this is a rallying cry to acknowledge the only thing that is going to bring us together - ART...as the universal salve to all of our traumas.
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Diary of a Deadbeat: The Story of Jim VanBebber
Title: Diary of a Deadbeat: The Story of Jim VanBebber
Character: Himself
Released: August 27, 2015
Type: Movie
A documentary of uncompromising, outlaw, cult underground filmmaker Jim Van Bebber, covering his life from 2010-2015 while he tries to make a comeback and make a new exploitation film after years of struggling to work.
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Title: Shot By Kern
Character: Self
Released: August 27, 2013
Type: TV
Seasoned photographer Richard Kern, best known for his images of scantily-clad, amateur models, travels around the globe to interview and shoot hundreds of women in their homes and apartments, capturing them even during their most intimate moments, including everything from brushing their teeth topless to lying naked in bed.
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Shot by Kern
Title: Shot by Kern
Character: Self
Released: August 27, 2013
Type: Movie
Seasoned photographer Richard Kern, best known for his images of scantily-clad, amateur models, travels around the globe to interview and shoot hundreds of women in their homes and apartments, capturing them even during their most intimate moments, including everything from brushing their teeth topless to lying naked in bed.
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The Advocate for Fagdom
Title: The Advocate for Fagdom
Character: Self
Released: November 4, 2011
Type: Movie
The Advocate for Fagdom unites the puzzle pieces one by one. Testimonies are combined with rare archive images. Art galeries present movie extracts that are succeeded by images shot on location. And the other way round. Writers, film makers, art galeries owners, actors and actresses, photographers, producers, friends and loved ones all join in a game of interpretation, analysis or simple anecdotes. John Waters, Bruce Benderson, Harmony Korine, Gus Van Sant, Richard Kern, Rick Castro and others deliver their impressions, theories and confessions. Everything blends into the fascinating portrait of a singular person blessed with singular talents. A complex personality at war not with a system but all systems. The portrait of a man constantly moving between his punk attitude and extreme sensibility.
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Blank City
Title: Blank City
Character: Self
Released: April 6, 2011
Type: Movie
In the years before Ronald Reagan took office, Manhattan was in ruins. But true art has never come from comfort, and it was precisely those dire circumstances that inspired artists like Jim Jarmusch, Lizzy Borden, and Amos Poe to produce some of their best works. Taking their cues from punk rock and new wave music, these young maverick filmmakers confronted viewers with a stark reality that stood in powerful contrast to the escapist product being churned out by Hollywood.
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NYC Foetus
Title: NYC Foetus
Character: Himself
Released: May 15, 2009
Type: Movie
A documentary about composer/producer/performer JG Thirlwell and his musical alter-egos, including Foetus, Steroid Maximus and Manorexia. Featuring interviews with Thirlwell, Matt Johnson (The The), Alex Hacke (Neubauten), Michael Gira (Swans), Richard Kern, Lydia Lunch and more.
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Llik Your Idols
Title: Llik Your Idols
Character: Himself
Released: July 30, 2007
Type: Movie
Discover the New York underground scene during the 80s and throw yourself into an exciting, anarchic and repulsive world that you won't forget.
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Kill the Artist
Title: Kill the Artist
Character: Himself
Released: January 1, 2007
Type: Movie
Reveals the extreme measures lawmakers and critics go through to censor avant-garde artists, who walk the fine line between art, perversion, religion and devious sexual behavior.
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Arakimentari
Title: Arakimentari
Character: Self
Released: January 18, 2004
Type: Movie
A look at the life and work of Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki and his impact on Japanese culture.
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D.I.Y. or Die: How to Survive as an Independent Artist
Title: D.I.Y. or Die: How to Survive as an Independent Artist
Character: Himself - Interviewee
Released: January 1, 2002
Type: Movie
This documentary features interviews with Ian MacKaye (Fugazi), J Mascis (Dinosaur jr.), John John Jesse (Demonic Erotic painter), Jim Rose (Jim Rose Sideshow), Jim Thirwell (Foetus), Lydia Lunch, Mike Watt (Minutemen), Richard Kern (Filmmaker), Ron Ashet
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Divine Trash
Title: Divine Trash
Character: Self
Released: March 31, 2000
Type: Movie
The life and times of Baltimore film maker and midnight movie pioneer, John Waters.
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Bullet on a Wire
Title: Bullet on a Wire
Released: January 1, 1998
Type: Movie
An unattractive social outcast (Jeff Strong) visits a stranger (Lara Phillips) in prison after setting off the events that landed her there.
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Lunch on Kern
Title: Lunch on Kern
Character: Himself
Released: January 1, 1997
Type: Movie
Featuring Lydia Lunch and the photography of Richard Kern. Teaser for an arté doc [Chris Habib] made as a kid
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Richard Kern - Portrait: Live From New York
Title: Richard Kern - Portrait: Live From New York
Released: January 1, 1997
Type: Movie
Haxan Films-produced documentary on Richard Kern's work around 1997. Footage from his photo sessions, interviews with Kern and his models, etc. Features associates such as Lydia Lunch, Beth B and more.
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Super 8½
Title: Super 8½
Character: Himself
Released: January 1, 1994
Type: Movie
A down-on-his-luck adult film star sees a chance to make a comeback via a lesbian documentary film-maker, but she is exploiting him to get financial backing for her pet project.
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My Nightmare
Title: My Nightmare
Released: September 3, 1993
Type: Movie
The filmmaker Kern and a female subject in a chaotic fast-cut blend of sexual and hypnotic imagery.
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Red Spirit Lake
Title: Red Spirit Lake
Released: January 1, 1993
Type: Movie
After a vengeful sorceress is tortured and killed by a corrupt industrialist looking to harness the spectral powers of Red Spirit Lake, her niece arrives in snow covered Angel Falls to settle her aunt's estate.
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No Age New York
Title: No Age New York
Character: Himself
Released: January 1, 1993
Type: Movie
A scattershot documentary about punk rock film makers in New York, with contributions from Lydia Lunch, Henry Rollins, Richard Kern, Beth B, Nick Zedd and many others. A love letter to the New York Underground.
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IDn4
Title: IDn4
Released: November 13, 1991
Type: Movie
I am so endlessly alone. Whats my illusions, whats my odds, and illusions have to be killed, I don't have more time to destroy. Is my loneliness real and is my longing about what? Then who are this people?
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American Nightmare
Title: American Nightmare
Released: January 1, 1991
Type: Movie
A video full of swastikas, human skulls on American flag backdrops, girls frenching on department store mannequins and burning themselves with candles, military helmets and clomping boots, dudes masturbating under crucifixes, and a bunch of crotches.
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We Are Not To Blame
Title: We Are Not To Blame
Released: January 1, 1989
Type: Movie
The apparent strangeness of two sisters becomes easily understood as they wreak appropriate revenge on one of their abusive husbands, by tying him up and imprisoning him on their rooftop. They slowly descend into madness as Stark wraps her head in bandages and paints her face white while clutching a baby doll.
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Submit to Me Now
Title: Submit to Me Now
Released: January 1, 1987
Type: Movie
Oddballs dancing, leering at camera, guy shaving a nontraditional part of his body and man ripping his own throat out, woman stabbing herself to death.
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Submit to Me
Title: Submit to Me
Released: January 1, 1985
Type: Movie